


As the shadows lighten

by SilverShadows



Series: When you're going through Hell... [2]
Category: MASH (TV), The Sentinel
Genre: M/M, Multi, Past Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-10 17:52:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8926594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverShadows/pseuds/SilverShadows
Summary: This is a sequel to my earlier work "Trapped".BJ Hunnicutt is a Sentinel, Captain in the US army (involuntary) and a surgeon newly arrived in Korea and assigned to the 4077th MASH where he is partnered with Captain Pierce, a surgeon and Guide who is more than a little leery of Sentinels in general and BJ in particular after the traumatising end of his previous assigned partnership with Trapper. Can BJ win not only Hawkeye's trust but also the rest of the camp's?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Possible triggers: there is mention of previous rape, current and previous panic attacks, depression & mood swings.

“Do you want to go and meet the new sentinel at the airport?” Margaret asked quietly, she was sitting on my chair, her eyes focused on her glass of gin.

 

“Why?” I murmured, stretched out on my bunk with the arm not holding my martini thrown over my eyes.

 

It was amazing, I mused, how loud silence can be.

 

Margaret sighed and finished her drink. “If you decide you want to go and meet him I'll talk Frank into it.”

 

“Why would you do that?” I moved my arm to stare at the tired-looking head nurse.

 

Margaret pursed her lips. “Because I can't stop them from sending him but I know I'd rather not meet… Him for the first time in front of the whole camp if it was me. I'd want privacy to get some things… Straightened out.”

 

“Hmmm… Point.” Watching Margaret's rigid form from under my lashes, “Thanks Margaret,” I whispered, eyes closing on hot tears.

 

“You're welcome Captain.” The voice was back to Major Houlihan's clipped tones as she put her glass down with a sharp click and left the tent.

 

***

 

Radar has started to smile at me again in the last week (thank God or a three hour jeep ride with him would have been murder, possibly literally). He's regaining his innocent outlook on life but there's still a shadow in his eyes that breaks my heart. Working in the OR, helping carry corpses to the grave registration trucks, even Henry's death didn't rob him of that innocence; but being forced to listen to a friend's tortured screams, unable to help, broke something that I doubt will ever fully mend, though it'll get easier to bear with time.

 

It's true that time heals all wounds but not without scars, and I won't be the only one left with some new ones from the past few weeks. I can accept now that my friends couldn't have helped me. Trapper would have killed them if they tried to stop him, even tranquilliser darts would have been too dangerous as sentinels can often burn them off too quickly when they're feral, and in his condition Trapper would have construed any aggressive move as an attack and retaliated. It's not their fault. It's not mine either, or even Trapper's. It's the damn army's fault for putting us in this crumby situation in the first place.

 

That's one of Sidney's prescriptions for me, every day I have to look in the mirror and say: “It wasn't my fault.” 

 

I've added: “It wasn't their fault,” (meaning my friends and everyone in camp) myself.

 

I took Margaret up on her offer to meet the new sentinel, one Captain Hunnicut, at the airport with only Radar as a witness instead of half the camp. My heart's in my mouth just thinking about it. It's not fair to this guy, I know. I've never met him and he's probably a great guy but I can't help but be scared of him.

 

Thank God for Sidney, he really came through. I could barely believe it when I read that Hunnicut is unbonded. According to his file he married a mundane and has requested to be assigned to male temporary guides where possible. Probably to avoid making his wife jealous while she's not present.

 

Threesomes aren't that uncommon in sentinel-guide families, it's reasonably normal for a male sentinel-guide pair to marry a mundane woman and settle down in a trio. Society approves because the genes for both the sentinel and guide have a chance to be passed on to children and someone can stay at home with them so the pair can fully use their gifts for society. Rather old-fashioned really but as long as everybody involved is happy, who cares? Sometimes even opposite sex pairings will bring someone into their

partnership, it can help give balance and again, means someone can stay at home while the pair goes to work. Pairs always work more efficiently when they're together.

 

***

 

BJ's POV

 

My first impression of Korea is one of overwhelming heat. It gets pretty hot in California but I think Korea's got a good ten degrees on us and I'm thankful for the hand on my arm grounding me until I can adjust.

 

I sling my duffle-bag over my shoulder and follow the milling men wandering towards the small cluster of very dusty buildings. If it wasn't for the noise of the aircraft I'd think I accidentally jumped back in time to America's 'Old West'.

 

A sergeant strides towards us from the direction of the buildings and starts shouting, chivvying the enlisted men towards a large building to the right. There's only two officers apart from me and we glance at each other, then quickly away, not wanting to see our own fear reflected in another's eyes. The guide who travelled with me squeezes my wrist gently and I try to swallow the lump in my throat as I desperately wish I was back home. I can see the other officer looking at the grip with distaste, his weasel spirit guide chattering angrily. Captain Jacobson, he introduced himself as. Judging from his words on the plane he seems to be one of those close-minded fellows who thinks sentinels are little better than animals. Jackass. I hope we're not going to the same place.

 

I wouldn't mind serving with Reese though, I glance back at my temporary guide and accidentally catch his eyes this time. He offers me a sickly smile, his terror obvious in the slightly glassy sheen to his eyes and strain around his mouth. I twist my wrist and catch his, squeezing in return. It's a hollow attempt at comfort but it's all I've got to give. Reese is a draftee too but despite my unspoken hopes I know how unlikely it is that they'll assign a history teacher to a medical unit when they could assign a nurse as my guide instead.

 

If they assign me a women I'm a little worried Peg may find a way to come over and scratch my eyes out, there's a reason her spirit animal is a big cat after all. She knows and accepts that I need a guide, and that I'll need a permanent one some day, but she doesn't like me working with other women when she's so far away. I promised when I proposed that inviting someone into our lives would be something we'd do together and that I was happy for it to be another man. She told me before I left that if I met a male guide I could see myself in a permanent relationship with while I'm  over here then she wanted to get to know him too, but if I thought about putting my hands on another women she'd cut them off. I've only known him a few days but I think she'd like Reese.

 

We stand quietly behind Jacobson as he greets the officer who's come to fetch us, the border collie sitting at the young man's heels seems very unimpressed with the chattering weasel and I hide a smile. I could kiss the man when he gives us a wry smile and doesn't offer to shake hands or salute, eyes flicking over our joined hands without judgement.

“You can pick up your orders in the Admin centre and we've got an officer's club if you've got time for a drink before you have to go.”

 

My quiet, “Thanks Captain,” is almost lost behind Jacobson's effusive bellowing. Reese squeezes my hand again as I flinch and I'm grateful again that he's with me.

Reese's been amazing on the flight over, I think he's trying to channel all his own fear into helping me but I appreciate it either way. I was expecting the noise of the aircraft but I hadn't thought about the vibrations, it feels like they go right to your bones and Reese had to pull me out of a zone on touch, then help me adjust my dials so I didn't spend the whole flight in agony. At least it was a bit of a distraction. My instincts have been screaming ever since I left San Francisco, I'm over ten thousand miles away from my wife and child and everything in me protests. How can I protect them from so far away? My instincts don't understand 'the Red Menace' or world politics, all I can think is that if anything happens to Peg and Erin I'm too far away to help.

 

“Hunnicut, B. J.” I take the sealed envelope with my orders, my stomach doing flips as I open it and  discover where I'm going. A MASH unit, the 4077th. It could be worse, not the Evacuation Hospital in Seoul but not a Battalion Aid station on the front lines either.

 

I look over at Reese who had released my hand in favour of his own orders. He's chalk white. A low, distressed whining sound comes from the coyote at his heels.

 

“Not good news?” I ask quietly.

 

That strained smile is back. “Not really, 78th battalion over at Pork Chop hill. I'll be working with a Major Jack Carlton, sentinel. I'm to report straight to a helicopter to be flown to Punmanjuam, I'll join a group there and take a truck. You?”

 

“MASH unit, 4077th. Looks like they're sending a jeep to pick me up.” I forced myself to smile back, though my heart was sinking. Not assigned together then. Who knew who I'd end up working with?

 

Reese grinned, a little more genuine, “You'll be the prettiest girl at the ball BJ. When that limo gets here you tell that soldier you're saving yourself for marriage and he better treat you right!”

 

That startled a laugh out of me and I found myself returning the grin and pulling Reese in for a quick hug. “You keep your fool-self safe, y'hear? I don't want to see you ending up on my table!”

 

“Roger wilco. Good luck!” 

 

Without another word he turned and strode away (his coyote spirit guide following at his heels, tail still thrashing with nerves) towards a bunch of pilots lounging around, sharing a smoke and playing cards a few feet from their chopper pads.

 

“Captain Hunnicut, sir?” I turned to the nervous voice and received an instant impression of something small and fluffy. I blinked and the vision resolved into a young man, short and blinking owlishly through round glasses. He was saluting rigidly, reeking of fear and a hamster was anxiously cleaning it's whiskers on his shoulder.

 

I was a bit taken aback. From what I've seen so far fear isn't an uncommon smell over here, but it isn't common to have it so concentrated and focused on me.

 

“I'm Corporal Walter O'Reilly, most people call me Radar. I'm supposed to drive you to the 4077th, I'm the company clerk.”

 

“Thank-you Corporal… Radar was it?” I returned the salute with a smile, trying my best to look harmless, and the corporal quickly picked up my bag. 

 

“Yes sir. Thank-you sir. I'll just put your bag in the jeep while you get acquainted with Captain Pierce sir.” The corporal scurried off, turning a corner and vanishing from sight.

 

I turned towards an avian shriek to find a man a little shorter than me, with hair as black as his spirit guide's feathers, watching me in silence. 

 

A crow guide, they've assigned me a crow guide.

 

Well that's not intimidating at all.

 

Sharp eyes flicker from me to my leopard guide sitting by my feet as the crow shrieks again, shifting on his shoulder and eyeing me warily, fluffing its feathers out to seem bigger as the man's hands twitch. I take a deep breath and almost choke on the scent of fear. 

 

A guide that's scared of sentinels.

 

  
**_A crow guide_** that's scared of sentinels. 

 

And his little friend was scared of me too. I have a sinking feeling that I'm walking into a very bad situation here.

 

Crow guides are a legend on par with wolves, they almost always end up Shamans because their instinct for the spirit world is so strong, which is why they are so strongly correlated with magic and death in many cultures. I can see how one would make a good surgeon, being able to sense when a persons soul is beginning to leave would be a great help in surgery (and, if the legends are true, maybe even holding it in place until the surgery's done and the patient's out of danger). However the legends also say they're vicious protectors, incredibly dangerous when threatened and capable of mental attacks. What could have happened to make one afraid of sentinels? And am I safe with a crow guide who's scared of me?

 

I hold out my hand, trying to ignore the threatening clicking of the crow's beak, “Captain Pierce.”

 

The man's face is unreadable but I feel a gentle brush against my mind as he takes my hand.

 

“Captain Hunnicutt. I'd say 'Welcome to Korea' but I doubt you'd appreciate it. So I'll settle for 'Hi.'”

 

“I'd appreciate a goodbye more, it's true.” I try to smile but my mouth doesn't feel right.

 

Something's wrong here.

 

He smiles, and it almost reaches his eyes which still haven't left me. 

 

Pierce is obviously a skilled Guide as we connect easily, though his mouth tightens in what I'd almost think is pain if that wasn't so nonsensical. It's the easiest connection I've ever experienced actually, though there's something…

 

The crow's injured.

 

His spirit guide is injured.

 

How the hell does that happen? I've never seen physical wounds on a spiritual being before, I didn't even know it was possible!

 

I look back to his face and meet a knowing, sardonic twist of the lips and unreadable eyes. “Come on Captain lets catch up with Radar, your khaki chariot awaits.”

 

“Hawkeye! Hawk!” The bespectacled corporal was pacing in circles, still carrying my duffle-bag, with his little hamster spirit scurrying around his feet as he squawks in distress.

 

“Calm down Radar, where's the jeep?” Pierce looks around, apparently expecting the jeep to coalesce out of thin air; still seeming mildly, but cynically amused at the world in general. As if he's constantly waiting on a joke but half-expects it to be on him.

 

“It's right here!” Radar waves frantically at the empty air around him.

 

“There is no jeep here. There's only a whole lotta here here.” Pierce states calmly, still looking around as if he expects a jeep to materialise out of thin air. His crow abruptly takes off from his shoulder but I'm distracted by the continuing drama being played out before me.

 

“I knew it! I knew it! Oh gee it's been stolen!” Radar was full out panicking now, pacing violently and shouting as the guide tried to calm him down.

 

“Alright. No sweat, no sweat. Alright.” I can feel Pierce trying to sooth the young corporal and his aura flares. I have no doubt now that at least some of the stories about crow guides are true, they are viciously protective of those they claim as their tribe. Pierce is practically announcing it by tannoy.

 

“Listen I'm responsible. I signed that jeep out. I'll have to pay for it. And I'm poor!” The corporal is wailing in despair by now and moving recklessly. The guide grabs him before he's run over by a truck and gets a grip on him, still trying to sooth him mentally.

 

“Things always this calm around here?” I ask, trying to break the tension a bit.

 

“It's the only war in town.” The guide replies absently, mentally still focused on Radar even as he looks at me.

 

“I've gotta get it back. I'll call an MP. Hey MP!” The corporal is still spinning in panic, though starting to think more logically thanks to Pierce.

 

“Radar. Radar. Radar.” Pierce is laying the calm on thickly now, “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs… then you probably haven't checked with your answering service.”

 

Oh, I like this guy! “Rudyard Kipling,” more than slightly butchered, but all the better for it.

 

“Good,” Pierce turns to flash me a quick, bright grin that still retains that unsettling sharp quality, “give that man a lady in the balcony.”

 

He turns back to the still-frantic corporal who starts punctuating his howl of: “That jeep is government property!” with a finger in the guide's chest. I bite back the instinctive growl. If I'm reading these two right I'm pretty sure I'd just terrify O'Reilly and infuriate Pierce. I have absolutely no desire to piss off the potentially lethal guide my safety and sanity will depend on for the forseeable future.

 

Pierce finally manages to get his hands on O'Reilly's shoulders and look him in the face, “So are you.” Huh?

 

The corporal appears to consider this. “I never thought of it that way.” What?

 

Now I'm really uneasy, I don't like the idea of humans being considered property (especially when it seems all too easy to apply to myself in this situation), I thought I was in a Korean Police Action not the Civil War. “Pierce, I'm just a little confused.” Please start making sense. Or at least stop talking as if we're property.

 

He turns back to me, “Hawkeye, and don't let a little confusion throw you Captain.”

 

Oh that explains the corporal's squawking earlier. “BJ.”

 

“One of the first things you learn over here BJ is that insanity is no worse than the common cold.” Hawkeye gives me that strange amused smile with a sardonic edge again. I wonder who the joke is on? Me? Him? The army? Humanity in general? Does he even know?

 

The corporal redirects our attention with a plaintive, “How will we get back? We don't got any wheels?”

 

I follow, bemused and amused but still worried and on edge, as the guide… Hawkeye, herds the protesting Corporeal towards the Officer's Club, all the while grinning across at me. But his smile doesn't reach his eyes and the crow is watching my every move from the gutter of the building, unnervingly still.

 

This is either going to go very, very well or very, very badly. 

 

And it's going to be dangerous either way I conclude with a sinking feeling as I raise my first drink in Korea in a toast; meeting the sharp, unforgiving eyes that are waiting, measuring and possibly plotting my accidental death on the route back to camp.


End file.
